The present invention relates to a fuze which is armed during flight, which fuze is especially adaptable for use in military training shells.
In the past, a wide variety of fuzes have been used for arming various types of shells, such as mortar shells which fuzes, for safety purposes, are armed during flight. Arming may result from various factors, such as centrifugal force created by the spinning shell, or the like. The present invention is directed toward a fuze which is armed during flight, but which is inexpensively manufactured and ideally suited for training fuzes to avoid the expense of training with more expensive shells. In addition, the cost of the shell can be reduced by the production of less expensive shell bodies for use with the fuze of the present invention. The present fuze has a safety locking pin for locking each fuze until the shell is ready to be fired. The shell is not armed until sufficient acceleration is reached by the shell in flight. Following the arming of the fuze, the fuze is ignited by sufficient deceleration or impact so that the fuze is armed by inertial movement in one direction, and fired by inertial movement of a larger mass in the opposite direction.